1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to usage of a telecommunication company's fiber to the premises (FTTP) installation at customer premises and, more particularly, relates to the customer's controlling of features associated with a battery backup unit (BBU) used for powering an optical network terminal (ONT) associated with the FTTP installation during power failures.
2. Description of Prior Art
Fiber optic infrastructure is currently being deployed by certain telecommunication companies, including the assignee of the present invention, and being operatively connected to their respective customer bases. Fiber optic telecommunication infrastructure offers many advantages over the old standard copper wire cabling, not the least of which is vastly increased bandwidth. The plain old telephone system (POTS) had operated, and still operates, with copper wiring. POTS is now being made compatible with fiber optic cabling.
However, a POTS telephone system in combination with this new fiber optic infrastructure involves certain optically-related and/or other functionality not previously needed in the copper wire cabling world. For example, an optical line terminal (OLT) is needed which may be located in the central office of the relevant telecommunications company or at some other regional location (but not on customer premises). The OLT is communicatively coupled via fiber optic cable to the ONT which is normally located immediately outside of a customer's premises (typically mounted on an outside wall some four-five feet above ground).
The ONT is powered by a power supply such as, for example, a power supply similar, or related, to that described in patent application Ser. No. 11/144,566 filed Jun. 3, 2005, claiming benefit of provisional application Ser. No. 60/576,675 filed Jun. 3, 2004, its assignee, and inventor being, in common with those of this instant application entitled: “Multi-Component ONT Power Supply” and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. That power supply is, in turn, powered by typical electric utility company power which is subject to power failure for reasons including, without limitation, natural disasters and terrorist attacks. During a utility company power failure, traditional POTS telephone service over copper wiring is ordinarily able to continue because of POTS battery back-up infrastructure which is in place at telecommunication company central offices. This battery backup system is designed to maintain POTS telephone service for an entire community. But, that otherwise-available emergency POTS telephone service shall not be available to a telephone customer using a FTTP system, if the ONT cannot communicate with the OLT over the fiber optic cable because the ONT lacks power due to that power failure.
To this end, battery backup has also been provided within the FTTP environment for the ONT and for customer telephone instruments connected to that ONT. But, in contrast with the central office location of POTS battery backup, ONT battery backup is located proximate its associated ONT, generally within, or near, the telephone customer's premises. This ONT battery backup unit (BBU) can be designed to include certain customer-useful features. One example is an alarm which sounds when the battery voltage level is low. However, an incessant sounding alarm can be an annoyance and, to compound the annoyance, the alarm is itself using battery energy when emitting sound. These features, under certain circumstances, can therefore be a detriment instead of a benefit to the customer. There is, therefore, a need for managing these features in a manner that reduces or eliminates any customer annoyance otherwise generated by these features. The present invention provides a solution to this shortcoming of the prior art.